April 23 (Bloomberg) -- ARM Holdings Plc, whose chip
designs power Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPad, jumped the most in
more than four years after reporting sales that beat estimates
as demand increased for its graphics and processing technology.

Revenue rose 29 percent to 170.3 million pounds ($260
million) in the first quarter, the Cambridge, England-based
company said today. Analysts predicted 160 million pounds, the
average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

ARM Chief Executive Officer Warren East said in March he
would retire July 1 after almost 12 years in charge. His
successor, Simon Segars, will focus on increasing the company’s
share of semiconductor designs and moving ARM’s technology into
connected devices, Web-enabled “smart” televisions, tablets
and smartphones. ARM’s chip designs compete with patents from
semiconductor makers such as Intel Corp.

“We’ve made an encouraging start to 2013 with more leading
companies deploying our technology in their products,” ARM
Chief Financial Officer Tim Score said on a conference call.

ARM’s revenue increase this year will be “quite well ahead
of” the industry’s projected growth in the “mid-single
digits,” Score said. That means ARM’s sales will be at least in
line with market expectations, he said.

ARM rose 12 percent to 972 pence at the close in London,
the biggest gain since October 2008. The stock has advanced 27
percent this year.

Connected Appliances

Second-quarter revenue will be in line with market
expectations, ARM said in a statement, as first-quarter data
“points to a sequential decrease in industry-wide revenues of
around 10 percent.” Analysts project 161.9 million pounds on
average.

The “Internet of things,” which include connected
appliances such as thermostats that can be controlled with
mobile phones, or wireless medical-monitoring devices,
represents one of ARM’s fastest-growing markets. The embedded-processing business grew 25 percent last year and ARM got more
than half of its sales from products other than mobile phones
for the first time in the third quarter of last year.

“There’s huge potential volume there,” Segars said in an
interview. “If anything is going to compare to mobile,
Internet of things is one of them.”

Mobile Growth

Global shipments of personal computers, tablets and mobile
phones will increase 9 percent to 2.4 billion units in 2013,
according to researcher Gartner Inc. Wireless devices will
account for the growth as consumers swap PCs for lower-priced
tablets and mobile phones, Gartner said.